34.--A tumbler, as caryatid. Rouen Cathedral, 13th
century.]
In the fourteenth century, from a celebrated MS. (2 B. vii.) in the
British Museum and other cognate sources we get a fair insight of the
amusement afforded by these dancers and joculators. In the
illustration (fig. 35) we get A and C tumblers, male and female; D, a
woman and bear dance; and E, a dance of fools to the organ and
bagpipe. It will be observed that they have bells on their caps, and
it must have required much skill and practice to sound their various
toned bells to the music as they danced. This dance of fools may have
suggested or became eventually merged into the "Morris Dance" (fig.
50) of which some account with other illustrations of "Comic Dances"
will be given hereafter. The man dancing and playing the pipes with a
woman on his shoulder (fig. 36), the stilt dancer with a curious
instrument (C), and the woman jumping through a hoop, give us other
illustrations of fourteenth century amusements.
[Illustration: Fig. 35.--14th century dancers. A and C are tumblers;
B, tumbling and balancing to the tambour; D, a woman dancing around a
whipped bear; E, jesters dancing.
Pages:
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43